September 4, 2015
By Steve Wishnia and Neal Tepel
With federal funding for road and transit programs scheduled to expire on Oct. 29, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is planning a massive advertising and lobbying campaign to get Congress to approve as much as $3.6 trillion in transportation infrastructure improvements over the next five years. “The nation’s roads, bridges, ports, airports, railroads, and mass transit systems are crumbling,” the union says, and fixing them would create jobs that would “restore a dynamic and prosperous middle class to drive economic growth.”
Congress has not passed a highway bill that provided funds for more than two years since 2005, and the current appropriation is a temporary three-month patch. The federal government typically spends about $50 billion a year on transportation infrastructure, and the 18.4 cents-per-gallon gas tax brings in only about $34 billion. Congress has to refused to raise that tax, which was last increased in 1993. Read more
